twelve years (and then some)
by andsocanshe
Summary: A post-canon/post-series companion piece for twelve days (for twelve years) because many people asked for a continuation and I was feeling inspired but also felt like adding another chapter kind of takes something from the initial story. [two-shot]
1. Chapter 1

_Being honest here, I'm more reluctant to post this than I was with Twelve Days (For Twelve Years) because I like how well that story stands alone but I did write more, I was asked for more, and I don't want it to go to waste so... it's a continuation because I wanted to leave the original story as a one-shot. Even though this could've worked as second and third chapters, it's just going to be a two part companion piece for the original._

_Thank you to the fuckin' hooray squad (Heather, Karen, and Roselle) for being the best betas._

—

_i._

The anniversary comes around a few months after he does.

Early that morning, Harvey finds Donna staring longingly out the window at his place (barefoot and still in pajamas with a cup of coffee in her hands; she's _home_). He doesn't have to think about it or wrack his mind for the date because he already knows.

He looks out at the skyline like that every year, not really looking but remembering the feel of Donna in his arms— sobbing, gasping for air over a loss that he couldn't fix. He remembers the solemn look on the emergency room doctor's face at 6:07 in the fucking morning, confirming what they already knew.

She'd been miscarrying for hours, maybe even a whole day before they were aware that anything was wrong and at the time, it had taken Harvey back to two nights earlier in his apartment as he watched Donna's hand fall gently over her still flat stomach when she thought that he wasn't looking. To the world it would have looked normal but to him, he knew what she was protecting… what she was falling in love with.

In that moment, he had fallen even more in love with her than he already was.

But he buried that for years and he's done burying things now.

Harvey watches Donna from the kitchen island for a moment longer and he knows that she knows he's there. She looks beautiful (always does) in a sad sort of way that breaks his heart when he realizes that he's been letting her deal with this alone for too long.

"Hey," he says softly, announcing himself in case she isn't ready to let him in before closing the distance between them in a few short strides. He wraps Donna in his arms and leaves a gentle kiss on her neck, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry."

Donna doesn't speak but he can feel her relax into his touch.

"I spent so many years letting you go through this alone…"

"Harvey, you were going through it too."

He nods, "But we should've gone through it together."

"We are now," she smiles sadly before turning in his arms, the hand not holding her now cold coffee reaching up to caress Harvey's cheek. "And we have gone through it together. Every year."

"Donna—"

She looks at him, eyes searching his face like she's trying to find the words or figure out how to hold her own without breaking before she speaks, "You never take meetings on the anniversary. Hell, you stay in your office for most of it. You bring me coffee… you kept bringing me coffee when I stopped working for you. And don't think I don't know that the flowers were from you, not my mother. I've always known that you remember."

"I should have been doing more than bringing you coffee."

Donna shakes her head, "I didn't know how to talk about it either."

"And now?"

"It's gotten easier… especially now that we're together. Looking back though, Harvey, we just weren't ready. But I meant what I said that night in the hospital," she takes a breath, willing her eyes to reach his again, "When I told you that I wanted it. I really wanted it."

"I did too," it comes out as a whisper, "More than you know."

Donna reaches up then, lips meeting Harvey's as she pulls him into a soft, slow kiss. It's a multitude of mutual apologies encased in healing and comfort and when they break for air, her head tucks beneath his chin and Harvey just holds onto her.

—

_ii._

"Do you want them? Kids, I mean," Harvey asks as he traces the pattern of freckles along Donna's shoulder the morning after their impromptu wedding. They're in bed in his condo— _their _condo, because all he is and all he has has always been hers, long before either of them realized— with a tangled mess of sheets surrounding them.

Donna gives him a quizzical look as her fingers brush the outline of his jaw, the sun coming through the window glinting off of her ring.

"Seeing you with Lucy," he explains, "I don't know. It got me thinking about what an incredible mom you would be, but after what happened…?"

It's true; Harvey hasn't stopped thinking about the look that she gave him while he watched her hold their friend's baby and despite the mess of emotions that they both still carry from years earlier, he realized that he wants to see that look again (only if that's what she wants).

"For a long time after we lost the baby, I didn't. Or I thought that I didn't. I don't know if I was more afraid of losing another one or…" Donna's voice trails off.

"Or what?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Donna."

She takes a deep breath, "Having a baby that wasn't ours. It felt like moving on from something that I wasn't ready to move on from and it took me a long time to let myself understand why."

Harvey smiles at her confession, and not in a shit-eating, victorious kind of way. It's genuine and so completely in awe that it reminds Donna of the look on his face when he told her that he had wanted to marry her the second that he met her only a day earlier.

"I _still _want to have our baby, Harvey," her smile matches his own now, "Maybe not right this minute or even in the next year, but someday, yes. I want them. Kids. With you."

"Me too. Little Donna Paulsens with your hair and your eyes," he kisses her and shifts their positions so that he's above her.

"Donna Paulsen-Specter," Donna laughs as his lips trail down her neck, "And they'll have your eyes."

(_She's right. Of course she is_.)

—

_iii._

Four months into their marriage, Donna finds herself staring down at two bright pink lines and she almost can't believe that it took Harvey jokingly throwing out a "maybe you're pregnant" after she pushed her coffee away for the third morning in a row for her to even consider the possibility that yeah, she could be pregnant.

They weren't trying— but they weren't _not_ trying either and the first thing that Donna notes is that she doesn't feel the bottom of her world drop out like she did the last time, nearly a decade and a half earlier.

She's settled now, married even (not that that was ever a requirement for them). And somehow in the mix of that future she had envisioned all those years ago, she was right: her kids will look like _him_.

It doesn't erase the loss that they still feel, it actually makes all of this a lot more terrifying, but Donna can't hold back the elated tears that fall when she turns around to face Harvey where he sits on the edge of the bathtub. There's a question in his eyes, impatience and curiosity noticeable in the raise of his eyebrows but he doesn't need to hear the words that Donna can't say because her tears and the way she nods repeatedly are confirmation enough.

He's on his feet in a flash, lips crashing into hers before leaving a quick trail of kisses across her jaw as he wraps her in his arms.

"I'm pregnant."

Harvey pulls back at that, Donna's hands finding his face and he grins that grin that she _knows_ this baby will inherit.

"Holy shit."

"I know."

"We're having a baby, Donna."

"We're having a _baby_, Harvey."

His grin widens even more than she thought possible and without hesitation, Harvey's fingers brush beneath Donna's eyes, wiping the stray tears before he leans in to rest his forehead against hers.

It's terrifying and exhilarating and more than that, it's a waiting game— to make sure everything is alright, to see if it happens for real this time but they spent years playing variations of this game so what's one more round?

—

_Thank you for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2

_So, here's the last part of all of this… it's split into multiple chapters because I felt it worked better that way considering the story is told through glimpses._

_And as always, props to the fuckin' hooray squad, my favorite betas-turned-personal ego boosters._

—

_iv._

"You have to let your mommy get some sleep," Harvey whispers as he gently bounces their daughter in his arms, her little head resting against his chest (close enough to his heart that she can hear his heartbeat like Donna insists that the baby likes) while he rubs soothing circles across her back.

She's six weeks, four days, and a couple of odd hours old by her father's count and she hasn't slept through the night since… well, ever. They know that this is how it works with new babies but any preparedness they thought that they had doesn't make it any less tiring.

Harvey paces the room with her, catching his own reflection in the window. Even after all of it, the guy he was ten years ago— five, three— never would've imagined that he would (could) be here today; the girl in his arms is his own daughter, the contrast of her barely-there red hair against his white t-shirt only outmatched by the silver band on the hand splayed across her back, another physical reminder of the woman that has been everything to him and given him everything he has since the moment they met.

"You know that you have the best mommy in the world?" he asks and the baby coos upon hearing his voice, "Yeah, of course you do. You are her daughter after all. I can tell you something you don't know, though."

Settling into the rocking chair by the window, Harvey shifts the baby in his arms so that he can see her face, her eyes— turning brown, like his— before he continues, "The first thing your mom ever said to me was that it was my lucky day because I met her. She was right, and I don't think she'll ever understand exactly how right she was."

"Oh, I won't?"

Looking up, he sees Donna in the doorway. She's exhausted but just as beautiful as ever with her hair in a messy bun and a playful smile plastered across her lips.

"You're supposed to be asleep," Harvey half scolds.

"Yeah, well," she moves to sit on the arm of the chair, resting against him while one finger lingers over their daughter's, "My husband apparently doesn't know how to turn the baby monitor off while he's trying to put the baby back down."

"So you heard all of that?"

Donna nods, "Which part? The singing while you were giving her a bottle or that I'm the best mom in the world?"

"You are the best mom in the world."

"And you're a sap," she rolls her eyes, reaching for the baby, "Now give me my baby."

"Donna."

"Harvey."

"It's my night. You've had the last three."

"And you've already been up with her for an hour and a half. If I don't take her now, no one in this house is going to sleep for _hours_."

Sighing in defeat, Harvey hands the baby off to Donna and watches the way they settle into each other. It's completely effortless.

Donna is a natural. From the minute she found out that she was pregnant to the minute it was safe to tell their friends and family to the minute that she felt the first kick and the minute that their daughter was born, Donna has been the best mother. Harvey can't believe how incredibly lucky he is to have this and every day, a little part of him, of both of them, mourns the chance they almost had years ago. It's bittersweet.

"Mommy's girl."

"At four in the morning when she's overtired, yes. But that's only because she's had six weeks of practice playing her daddy's soft side. You're gonna let our kid get away with anything, Harvey."

He chuckles softly. She's right.

"But you know, I don't think _I've_ ever told you thank you," Donna whispers, peeling her gaze from their daughter's fluttering eyelids to steal a glance in his direction.

"For what?"

"For this. For being the father that she deserves… and has wrapped around her finger. For being the man that I fell in love with all those years ago."

Harvey smiles softly and leaves a kiss on her shoulder. He doesn't need to tell Donna this because she knows, she can feel it in the way that he looks at her— the silent thank you for never losing faith in him. For waiting years for him to become the man that was capable of giving her all that she had always given him. For trusting that he could be a father to their children— not just the first time, but the second, and however many (if any) would come after this.

How they got here, the fact that they got here, is still a little unbelievable but twelve days, twelve weeks, twelve months, twelve years, and then some find them exactly where they were always meant to be and that in itself is enough.

That in itself is _everything_.

— ღ —

_Thank you for reading!_


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